Not The BBC News: 29 June 2018

One of the nine justices from the US Supreme Court has tendered his resignation and will leave the Court in a month’s time. This appointment is significant because the justice will remain in post until resignation or death (which could be 30-50 years -- the youngest candidate is a 46 year old woman) and because the Supreme Court justices often vote in accordance with their own political beliefs. President Trump is likely to select a conservative (with a small ‘c’ – someone who interprets the Constitution literally rather than re-imagining it in the light of modern views) which will create a conservative majority in the court on social issues for the first time in decades. Speculation has already begun about possible repeal of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the USA.

One decision the Supreme Court has made recently concerned a “baker and gay marriage cake” case. A Christian baker in Colorado, whose beliefs were sufficiently strong that he refused to bake Halloween cakes, was asked to bake a cake supporting gay marriage and refused. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC) decided he was using his claims of religious freedom to justify discrimination. However, a Christian activist then asked several bakeries in the state to bake a cake saying that homosexuality was a sin; all refused and were backed by the CCRC. The Supreme Court found that the Christian baker was in the right by a 7-2 majority on the grounds that the CCRC had been “unusually hostile” to him, with the inconsistent decision regarding the other bakeries featuring heavily in the justification. However, this reasoning means that the case does not necessarily apply to other US states where similar sanctions have been applied against Christian bakers, florists and other businesses.

The ultra-liberal Canadian government, in contrast, has increased its legal pressures against Christians. Its latest move has been to uphold a decision by two Canadian provinces that a Christian law school cannot have its graduates validated as lawyers because Trinity Western University requires students not to engage in acts “that violate the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman”. It has also ruled that a polyamorous (i.e. polygamy without multiple marriages) threesome can all be named as legal parents of a child. Legal resistance continues to centre around the state of Alberta where parents want to block a law that not only allows schools to set up LGBT ‘clubs’ but allows them to keep a child’s membership secret from parents.

Hungary has achieved a significant drop in abortions and divorces and a surge in marriages by introducing pro-family policies. The policies include maternity support; paid childcare leave; family tax benefits and housing allowance; tax allowances that encourage young couples to marry; no-charge holiday camps for children; subsidized textbooks; and decreased utility costs. Compared with 2010, there has been a 42% increase in marriages; a 20% drop in divorces; and a 30% fall in abortions.

Andrew White, the “Vicar of Baghdad”, has been cleared of criminal charges for allegedly paying Islamic State terrorists to redeem Yazidi sex slaves. It seems that some human rights activists did make such payments, and that White also managed to free six or seven women through his network of Arab contacts, but that White’s actions did not involve payment. “You would think that releasing sex slaves from ISIS was a good thing,” said White, “but [the police] were convinced that I could only have done it by paying for them”.

In the Far East, a major move of God has been reported from Mongolia. “Even people on the streets will talk to you about how to get saved” said 86 year old missionary Marilyn Hickey.

There is also a story from Myanmar (formerly Burma) of two thousand Kachin Christians escaping from the Burmese Army, which has been attacking the mainly Christian ethnic minority for decades allegedly in a campaign against separatist groups. The civilians had been trapped in the jungles in the north; they fled on foot, with several being injured by landmines on the way. When they came to a wide river, local elephant owners volunteered the services of their animals to transport the refugees across.

In the Philippines, a third Catholic priest has been killed in a drive-by shooting. The current president, Rodrigo Duterte, is carrying out a “war in drugs” using the same methods he employed as mayor of a large city -- by encouraging extrajudicial killings. There have been 16,000 unsolved homicides in the past 18 months, mainly among the urban poor. The policy remains popular among ordinary Filipinos but the Catholic Church in the country has been a vocal critic of the policy, calling it a “reign of terror” in poor communities.

The recent conflicts between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were brought to an unexpected end by the weather. Palestinian attacks had already caused fires near the border, including in a Jewish school. It was feared that the end of Ramadan would be marked by the launch of large numbers of “kite bombs” designed to cause further conflagrations, Instead, unseasonal downpours of rain flooded streets to the point of half-submerging cars.

Back in the USA, the Department of Justice has carried out a 3 month investigation against suspected online child sex offenders. The investigation identified 195 offenders who either produced child pornography or committed child sexual abuse and 383 children who suffered. 2,300 people were arrested in mid-June and are likely to be charged.

Also in the USA, the debate over gun control has a new case to consider: an armed robber in Washington State was shot dead by a pastor. The man entered Walmart in the town of Tumwater, which sells ammunition, and opened the case by shooting it. He then attempted to steal a car, shooting the driver twice. Two men who were legally armed followed the man outside; after telling him to put the gun down, the pastor (who is also a paramedic but declined to give his name) shot the robber dead.

In technology news, a 9 year old girl in the UK has been checked into rehab because of her addiction to the video game Fortnite. The unnamed girl had been limited to playing the game for one hour on school nights and two hours at weekends but would get up every night and play secretly. Eventually her father found her sitting on a urine-soaked cushion because she wouldn’t even leave the game to go to the toilet. An addiction counsellor said, “Over the last two months I’ve been contacted by dozens of parents with children as young as eight showing signs of addiction to Fortnite. I’ve been working in this field for three decades and never seen anything like it, how widespread and potentially damaging this is.”

And finally, the organisers of the next Olympic Games in Tokyo have announced that the event will be 100% powered by renewable energy. They have budgeted for installing solar panels and buying renewable energy from power companies. In addition, they will use fuel cell vehicles and will lease or rent services as much as possible to ensure that 99% of all buildings, supplies and materials are re-used after the Games. The motto on their website is, “Be better, together – For the planet and the people”.

Not The BBC News: 20 May 2018

Bishop Michael Curry’s widely-seen sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has drawn mixed reactions from the Christian community. Many found his energy and enthusiasm infectious or even amusing (including many of the Royal Family at the wedding who were seen trying not to laugh). Many Christians have praised his call to change the world through the power of love and his quotes from the Bible about love. But others have criticised it for being “Christianity lite” – offering love and hope without ever defining love or delivering on hope, because it does not preach the way of love that Jesus preached – repentance, coming to the Cross, then loving God first and foremost. A commentator said, “According to the Hebrew prophets, only God will deliver personal and political transformation… while the God that Curry preached gives romance and erotic love and neighbourly generosity without any conditions attached.”

A Boeing 737 which crashed in Cuba, killing 107 passengers, was carrying ten pastors from Cuba’s Church of the Nazarene and their spouses, returning home from a church retreat. Nine couples have been confirmed dead. “They were singing and praying in the bus on the way to the airport,” said the bus driver.

An investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Chile, and subsequent cover-ups, has concluded with every Catholic bishop in the country resigning from their post. A statement said they are placing the issue in the hands of the Holy Father so that he might freely decide for each one of them. The Vatican has not yet commented on whether it will accept the resignations.

Five top ISIS officials have been arrested in Syria, including a top aide to the chief of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, including the two highest-ranking officials ever to be captured alive. Their responsibilities included governing part of Syria; directing internal security; and running the administrative body that oversees religious rulings.

One of the candidates in today’s presidential election in Venezuela is a Pentecostal pastor. Javier Bertucci’s campaign has centred on distributing soup to hungry Venezuelans and preaching evangelical values. Success is seen as unlikely because the formal opposition coalition is boycotting the May 20 presidential vote because many of its leading politicians are in jail, exiled or barred from standing. The coalition says the vote is a sham designed to legitimize President Nicolas Maduro.

Canada’s ultra-liberal government has issued its first birth certificate with no specified gender, to an adult (born male but with ‘feminine features’) who applied for one. It has also been backed by the Canadian Paediatric Society which has issued new guidelines telling parents that it is “normal and healthy” for children as young as two to “assume other gender identities at different times (sometimes even in the same day).” However, a backlash against the government’s policies has begun, especially in Alberta which has a conservative provincial government: Alberta’s child services have reversed their new policy that Christian couples cannot adopt children because of their beliefs about marriage and sexuality; a Christian school in Alberta is fighting against the decision to close the school because it refused to stop teaching Bible verses that condemn homosexuality; and a small family-owned business has filed a lawsuit against the government after being denied federal funding for a summer student because they refused to sign a pledge supporting abortion.

An Israeli company has invented a device that connects to a smartphone and allows expectant mothers to view their own ultrasound pictures of their unborn babies. PulseNmore Ltd say the device can be used for up to 25 checks. While it is intended for calming anxiety in women who cannot fell their baby moving, it has been hailed by pro-lifers because a woman who has seen her baby on ultrasound is significantly less likely to seek an abortion.

The state of Iowa has passed a law banning abortions once the unborn baby has a heartbeat, which occurs at around six weeks’ gestation. There are exceptions for rape and incest. A lawsuit has already been filed against it on the grounds that it violates women’s rights. A petition in support of the law says, "When the child in the womb has her own, distinct DNA and her own, distinct heartbeat, it's clear she's not a disposable part of the mother, she's a baby."

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, a major provider of abortions in the UK, has claimed that post-abortion trauma is a “completely fabricated condition”. A spokeswoman said it was a term only used by pro-lifers to undermine abortion services. A spokeswoman for a post-abortion care organisation replied, “If anyone at BPAS really believes this they have a lot of research to catch up on… every time a headline such as this appears the women who are suffering after abortion are further stigmatised and silenced. This is unjust and damaging.”

In UK politics, hundreds of women have resigned from the Labour Party because the party decided to allow men who claimed to be transgender to join all-women shortlists for political office without needing to show any medical proof. In a letter to the Times, a group of women said, “Sex is not a self-defined characteristic and it is disingenuous for Labour to pretend that it is.” They also particularly objected to the Party’s decision to make the change “without any debate or consultation with women members”.

In the Far East and Africa, intense persecution of Christianity continues. In Surabaya, Indonesia, suicide bombings in 3 churches killed 12 people. The bombings were carried out by one family: husband in one church, wife in another, and their children in a third. A Catholic church in Bangui, Central African Republic was attacked with gunfire and grenades, killing 15; another in Nigeria’s Middle Belt was attacked by gunmen who killed 19 including two priests. A popular Pentecostal pastor in the Indian state of Jharkhand was ambushed by Marxist guerrillas and later found beheaded. A Catholic priest who opposed local mining and helped indigenous people has been fatally shot after Mass in the northern Philippines by two men on a motorcycle. A 17-year-old Christian girl was murdered in Pakistan after being tied down and strangled to death by the Muslim family for whom she worked as domestic helper before her visiting father's own eyes, reportedly because she didn't do the household chores to their satisfaction. And the Chinese district of Henan has implemented new restrictive rules on Christians including banning any training and banning bringing children to church.

One piece of good news from the region came with the release of three American citizens from North Korean jails as part of the ongoing rapprochement being led by Donald trump. All three are Christians; at least one was arrested for “anti-government activities” which were actually Christian activities.

Another piece of good news is the UK government’s decision to reduce the maximum bet on FOBT betting machines to £2. The machines allow bets to be placed every 20 seconds and the previous maximum bet was £100, leading to some people quickly losing vast sums of money. The betting industry has complained of an expected fall in profits.

A church in Atlanta has announced that they will be adding aerialists as regular parts of their church service. Embassy Church International experimented with the idea in a recent conference and now plans to make the acrobats a full part of their normal worship. The head pastor tweeted, “We endeavor to create a culture driven by the creativity and character of Christ!”

In sports news, the end of the football season in Iran included the Teheran team Persepolis winning the championship for the second successive season. Women have been banned from football grounds in Iran since 1979, partly so they do not hear bad language; but five young women tweeted a picture of themselves inside the ground wearing wigs and fake beards. Neighbouring Saudi Arabia recently lifted a similar ban.

And finally, a 4 year old boy in Birmingham, Alabama spends his pocket money in an unusual way: he gets his parents to buy chicken sandwiches , then the boy dresses as a superhero and gives them out to the homeless. Austin Perine’s superhero alter-ego is called “President Austin” because feeding the homeless is his idea of what a president is supposed to do. With every sandwich he gives a message: “Don’t forget to show love”.

Not The BBC News: 21 April 2018

The California Assembly has voted in favour of a Bill to ban the sale of books that address helping people overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, and that may even extend as far as banning the Bible. California had already become the first state to ban any counselling (for children or adults, mandated or voluntary) on “gay conversion” – meaning that if a (tithing) church member asked their pastor for such counselling, it would be illegal for the pastor to offer any. The latest Bill classifies any advertising of the practice as “unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a transaction” – and State laws expressly command that laws against deceptive acts or practices are “liberally applied”, leading to fears that the same law might be used to ban any books or materials supporting a traditional Christian view of sexuality or even describing divine healing. The Bill is yet to be voted on by the state’s Senate.

Orange County in California has banned parents from withdrawing their children from “sex education” lessons in school that promote abortion and homosexuality, including using sex toys and anal lubricant, and defining “anal intercourse,” “phone sex,” and more as “common sexual behaviours.” The curriculum was introduced in 2015 with an explicit right in the Act for parents to excuse their children from participation – but the Orange County Board of Education has decided that the opt-out only applies to lessons that specifically discuss “reproductive organs”.

A third Bill that has been put forward in California would mandate anyone operating a website in California to fact-check the news they post according to the standards of the state and to place a warning on news stories containing false information. The similarities to the “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s novel 1984 (which actually disseminated only its own version of the truth) are noticeable.

Meanwhile, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has warned his people not to engage in “wrong” sexual practices “indulged in and promoted by some of the outsiders” – including oral sex. “The mouth is for eating, not for sex,” he said, adding: “We know the address of sex; we know where sex is.”

In Glasgow, a gay pride organisation has decided to ban drag queens from its annual parade in case they offended transgender people. Free Pride Glasgow which bills itself as being more non-commercial and open-minded that traditional Glasgow LGBT events, said, “It was felt that some drag performances hinge in the social view of gender and make it into a joke, however transgender individuals do not feel as though their gender identity is a joke.”

President Trump has signed a declaration that April 2018 is “Second Chance Month” for “those who have exited the prison system and successfully re-entered society." The idea of “Second Chance Month” emerged from the Christian charity Prison Fellowship to address the hopelessness that ex-convicts often suffer from. It turns out that there are 48,000 “collateral sanctions” in US Law restricting the rights of former prisoners to housing, employment, education and other things. The “Second Chance” initiative is being promoted by an unlikely combination of Prison Fellowship, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Heritage Foundation.

Another new piece of (bipartisan) US legislation has made a huge dent in the online sex trafficking industry. Free speech advocates had fiercely defended the right of websites to place adverts for sexual services even though many people knew or suspected that the prostitutes involved were being trafficked. The new legislation allows those who have been trafficked to sue the websites that offered them for sale. The biggest such website, Backpage.com has been shut down and other websites such as Craigslist have taken steps to reduce their liability. Ann Wagner, who sponsored the Bill through the House of Representatives, said, “We have already interrupted 87 per cent of the global ad volume.”

On the subject of abortion, the latest news from the US is that there is no news: specifically, two major events that might portray abortion as a bad thing have been ignored. One was a student walkout from 200 schools on 10 April to support pro-life causes which received no media coverage from the major networks, in contrast the previous walkout regarding gun control. Also an abortionist is on trial in New York for causing the death of a patient by releasing her to go home after an abortion even though she was bleeding heavily and had already collapsed once at the clinic. Robert Rho’s trial was expected to finish on April 13 but is continuing.

In Asia and Africa, persecution of Christians continues. Two Muslims claiming Islamic State allegiance have claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting outside a church in Quetta, Pakistan that left two dead and three injured, after four Christians from the same family were shot by militants in the same city on Easter Monday. A third Roman Catholic priest has been shot dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, shortly after celebrating Mass and a fourth has been kidnapped with a high ransom being demanded; the local bishop said, “There are different armed groups in our region, at least 15… we live in total chaos”. A Czech missionary who was arrested for carrying a duplicate passport in Sudan and held for 14 months told how he was tortured by fellow prisoners who were ISIS fighters but was eventually able to bring 40 Eritrean prisoners to faith in Jesus. An American missionary who served as a pastor in Izmir, Turkey has been jailed on charges of “Christianisation” and spying; Donald Trump tweeted “I am more of a spy than he is”, but the Turks decided to raise the stakes by moving Pastor Andrew Brunson to a far more overcrowded prison despite him already being in declining health. And a pastor in China has been sentenced to seven years in jail for “organising others to illegally cross the border into Myanmar” [Burma] when all he was doing was organising groups of teachers to deliver notebooks, pencils and Biles across the river border.

However. Egypt has decided to grant licences to 166 unlicensed church buildings following the passing of a law in 2016 to protect Christian churches – although approximately 3500 churches remain unlicensed while only 53 others have been granted licences. Some of the licence requests collected by the Coptic Church date back over 150 years. Also in South Sudan, a total of 207 male and female child soldiers were released by armed groups, part of a series of planned discharges that should see nearly 1,000 children return home over the coming months. It follows the release of 300 children by armed groups in early February,

There is contrasting news regarding two long-running stories. Of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok, Nigeria in April 2014, 150 are now free, either through escape or after a ransom payment in May 2017. Of the remainder, 13 are presumed dead; 112 are missing; and one chose to stay with her husband rather than be released. However, the news for Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian mother who has spent years on death row on a (apparently trumped-up) charge of blasphemy against Islam, is less good; the European Commission, which had threatened to deny Pakistan duty-free access to EU markets unless Bibi was released, has now changed its mind and granted the access.

In science and technology news, scientists in Britain think they may have created a mutant enzyme capable of breaking down plastic drinks bottles, which could be used to help tackle the planet’s pollution problem. The breakthrough follows studies done on bacteria that had naturally evolved and was found feeding on plastic at a waste dump in Japan in 2016; the mutation was induced by X-rays. University of Portsmouth biologist Professor John McGeehan and his colleagues are now attempting to verify their claim.

In film and music news, the success of the film I Can Only Imagine has helped to make the song of the same name the official inspirational song of the state of Oklahoma, where much of the filming was done. Governor Mary Fallin signed the Bill into law on 19 April.

And finally, a Texas megachurch that normally spends $100,000 advertising its services at Easter time decided instead to donate the money to a local charity that buys up medical debt and then forgives it. US medical debt overwhelms people’s finances so often that it is often sold on at a large discount; medical providers reason that it’s better to get some money than none at all. Covenant Church based in Carrollton ended up paying off over $10 million worth of medical debt for 4,229 families within 20 miles of one of its campuses, including every single military veteran living in those areas.

Not The BBC News: 14 March 2018

There are increasing legal pressures and persecutions of Christians in Asia, on top of existing laws such as the one in Russia that bans open air preaching. Malaysia has become the latest country to legally ban conversion to Christianity, although the ban does not apply if a Muslim Sharia court consents. Such laws already exist in India where 13 Pentecostals were sentenced to 6 months in prison for converting in Madhya Pradesh; and the laws were used as an excuse by Hindu radicals to beat up pastors and vandalise churches in three incidents in one month in Karnataka state, where elections are forthcoming. Tajikistan has passed a “human rights” law that allows the state to restrict any religious activity and forces religious organisations to report their activities to the State. The family of a young Pakistani Christian man, who was apparently tortured by the Federal Investigation Agency in Punjab to the extent that he attempted suicide by leaping from a fourth floor window, are in hiding while lawmakers and politicians are demanding an independent investigation. And in North Korea, 80 people were publicly executed with machine guns in seven cities for infractions including theft of food and owning Bibles.

There is some good news from India – the President has launched a programme to teach the survivors of human trafficking new life skills. The three-month programme will “build aptitude and ability” and “provide sustainable opportunities”. The programme was launched on International Women’s Day.

Also, the Winter Olympics in South Korea have proved to be a magnet for Christian missionaries with over 3,000 gathering (including 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses), far more than for previous Olympic games. The United Christian Churches of Korea, a coalition of 144 local congregations, helped foreign mission groups to arrange housing and ministry sites and to learn about Korean culture.

Well-known televangelist Benny Hinn, a Palestinian Christian by birth, has surprised many by apparently renouncing the ‘prosperity’ gospel that he has long preached. "We get attacked for teaching prosperity,” he said; “well, it's in the Bible, but I think some have gone to the extreme with it, sadly. I think I'm as guilty as others." He continued, "What is prosperity? No lack. Did Elijah the prophet have a car? No. He did not even have a bicycle. But he had no lack. What about the Lord? Did Jesus drive a car or live in a mansion? No. He had no lack. How about the apostles? No lack. No lack among them. [That is different from] abundance and palatial homes and cars and bank accounts."

Various new laws have been passed by US states which weigh for or against Christian beliefs. Florida has declared pornography to be a public health risk, based on research showing links between pornography use, mental illness and dangerous sexual behaviour. Iowa’s Senate has passed a law banning abortions on unborn babies with beating hearts (i.e. around 6 weeks’ gestation), though the lower chamber must also pass it and the Governor sign it to become law. Oregon, in contrast, has passed a bill allowing healthcare givers to starve mentally ill patients (including those with dementia and Alzheimer’s) to death.

An evangelical Christian professor from Texas Tech University was warmly welcomed to speak at a United Nations climate change summit in oil-rich Alberta recently. Katherine Hayhoe says her Christianity fuels her dedication to climate science; “it exacerbates poverty and hunger and disease and civil conflicts and refugee crises,” she argued. Her experience of debating the issue with sceptical fellow Christians (including her husband) has led her to conclude that scepticism is “'not because they really have a problem with the science … It's because they have a problem with the perceived solutions of taxes, government legislation, and loss of personal liberty.”

Famous atheist Richard Dawkins has called for humans to eat lab-grown meat to resolve the world food crisis – including lab-grown human meat. “We must overcome our taboo against cannibalism,” he tweeted.

In the Sunday Times’ annual survey of Best Companies, the top prize in the Not-For-Profit sector went to a Christian charity, the Message Trust, which demonstrates Christian faith in schools, prisons and tough communities. Its leader, Andy Hawthorne, also won the prize for Best Leader for the second year in succession.

In film news, Disney released “A Wrinkle in Time” this week. The film writer deliberately left out the Bible references in the original book because she wanted the film to be “inclusive” and because “we have progressed as a society”. The film took $33 million on its opening weekend, which is slightly better than the average for all films but was not good enough to remove “Black Panther” from being the most popular film for the 4th successive week.

Also in film news, British film actor Taylor James, who appeared in films such as Mamma Mia and Descendants, has reported that he had a vision some years ago that he should grow out his hair and maintain a certain physical appearance. He then had a conversation with a friend who “has a special ability to connect predictions” who told James that he would “go home and lead his people.” Three years later James auditioned for the lead role in the Biblical epic ‘Samson’, which was filming in South Africa where he was raised and required a man who would ‘lead his people’. The film ‘Samson’, starring James, will be released in the UK in late May.

And finally, a UK bishop has offered “ten commandments for robots” to limit the uses of artificial intelligence, especially relating to data protection, ethics and criminal subversion. Stephen Croft, who is Bishop of Oxford, sits on the House of Lords select committee on AI. His commandments included “The primary purpose of AI should be to enhance and augment, rather than replace, human labour and creativity” and “Governments should ensure that the best research and application of AI is directed towards the most urgent problems facing humanity.” He urged Christians to “think seriously about these questions and engage in the debate.”

Not The BBC News: 6 February 2018

A teacher at a school in Bristol was fired from her job in July 2016 for telling students about her Christian beliefs and reported to the Prevent, the Government’s anti-terrorist agency, as a radicalisation threat. Svetlana Powell, a teacher at T2 Academy, was asked about her faith by an argumentative student; other students then asked similar questions and she decided to use the discussion to accommodate the activities of the day’s lesson plan on cultural issues. The argumentative student asked for her personal views on homosexuality and whether a fellow (lesbian) student would go to Hell; Ms Powell replied that she personally believed that homosexual activity was against God’s will but that God loved everyone regardless of what they did and who they were, and that the historic Christian view is that God has provided a way of salvation of everyone who repents. Some students later complained and Ms Powell was suspended from work the following day; invited to a disciplinary hearing the day after, too soon to obtain legal representation; and then dismissed immediately on the grounds that she could not control her students and that her comments were offensive to some students, without right of appeal. At her employment tribunal, her lawyer contrasted Ms Powell’s treatment with that of a fellow left-wing atheist teacher about who students had complained that he spent most of his time in class “preaching to them on the daily basis about how terrible England is and how many innocent people the government has killed, as well as why Jesus never existed”; had once shown students a sketch of a naked woman with her legs open and vagina showing; and had allegedly twice told a student to “get the f*** out of my classroom”. The punishment this teacher received was to be told off and to have his probation period extended by three months.

At another school in Oxford in November 2017, a Christian teacher at a Stonewall school was suspended and may lose his job after saying “Well done girls” to a group of female students, one of whom had declared herself to be transgender. He immediately apologised, aware that the Stonewall’s schools have a heavily pro-transgender policy including requiring teachers to use gender-neutral pronouns for transgender students – which the teacher avoided by referring to students by name at all times. However, the transgender girl’s parents complained about him (for the second time; the first had been when he handed out Christian leaflets at a gay pride march).

In Canada, the government continues to follow similar trends. It has been confirmed that their policy that employers must support abortion in order to receive summer student job grants applies to church groups; a Christian school in Kingman, Alberta has lost its funding from the local school division because it refused to exclude Biblical teaching in homosexuality and other Christian teaching that could be deemed offensive from its syllabus; and the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself, taking part in a recent televised public debate, told off a questioner for using ten term “ mankind” saying “we like to say peoplekind”.

The London Assembly as voted to call on the Mayor of London “to clarify the powers available to [police] to arrest and prosecute” pro-life campaigners who pray near abortion clinics and offer support to mothers, accusing the campaigners of “harassment”. However, the pro-life group concerned say there has not been a single conviction or caution from police in their 23 years of prayer vigils.

Persecution of Christians in some countries continues to go far beyond loss of employment. A Catholic mother of two young children in Vietnam who used social networks to denounce restriction of civil freedoms and prevalence of corruption among the leaders of the Communist Party has been sentenced to 9 years in jail for “propaganda against the state”. A Christian high school student in Nairobi was beaten and knifed by fellow students for refusing to convert to Islam. A 13 year old Pakistani Christian girl was attacked and raped while working in fields near Gurjanwala; the assailant was apprehended because the girl’s father’s landlord became upset and chose to have the incident announced in local mosques. In China, where many churches have had the Cross forcibly removed from their buildings, authorities have destroyed an $2.6 million megachurch in LInfen by setting off explosives inside it. In DR Congo, where protests against the president’s refusal to step down from power have spread inside churches, eight Christians have been killed by police who opened fire and used tear gas inside churches. A former Christian governor of Jakarta, Indonesia is serving a two year jail sentence after he was falsely accused of blasphemy in 2016; an edited Facebook video that showed him allegedly blaspheming the Quran, although Basuki Tjahaja Purnama had really issued a warning against politicians who used the Quran for political advancement. And a Cuban Christian dissident was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison late last year after authorities raided his home and confiscated Bibles and crucifixes; a police official said, “Misael, in addition to being a counter-revolutionary, you are also a Christian. You should look at us, we are revolutionaries and we don’t believe in your God. Our God is Fidel Castro”.

However, there has been some good news. In Indonesia, 9000 Christian prisoners including Purnama were given a reduction in their sentences on Christmas Day, although the maximum reduction was two months. One of the 270 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram from Chibok in Nigeria 4 years ago has been returned to her home after being found wandering in a forest. A Burmese widow who fled with her husband as Christian refugees to Ides Moines, Iowa, only to see her husband killed in an attempted robbery six years later, has been given a home after a community appeal raised $300,000. And 51 girls have been rescued by police from an Islamic seminary in Lucknow, India after complaining that the manager would beat them and molest them; after investigation, the police agreed this had been happening.

The March for Life has taken place in numerous capital cities, with marchers carrying signs with messages such as “I support a woman’s right to be born”: “Keep your philosophy off my biology”; and a cut-away picture of a pregnant women with the simple caption, “Love them both”. President Trump became the first sitting US President for 45 years to give a speech to the March, after which the Senate agreed to vote on a pro-life bill that Trump had called for in his speech. The Bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation. The Trump administration also declared the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade legal decision that first permitted legal abortion in the USA to be “Sanctity of Life Day”.

A Bill that has been passed by the US House of Representatives requires abortionists to immediately provide emergency medical care to an infant born alive during an abortion. Abortion providers Planned Parenthood described the Bill as “unnecessarily inflammatory”.

Bermuda has become the first country to repeal same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage became legal in the British Overseas Territory in summer 2017 because of a decision by the Supreme Court, despite a landslide rejection in a 2016 referendum. However, a recent change of Government led to a swift change in the law, introducing “domestic partnerships” -- a form of civil partnership – instead of marriage.

The UK government may well introduce civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. The change appears inevitable under equality principles, but it has long been resisted by governments because of the cost of giving marriage-equivalent pension rights and other benefits to unmarried heterosexual couples. A Bill to change the law, introduced by a Conservative MP, has been given an unopposed second reading – any Bills the Government wants to kill off are normally disposed of at this stage.

In sport: American sportsmen and women are sometimes mocked for dedicating their sporting success to God. However, the Philadelphia Eagles team that recently won a surprise victory in the Superbowl is perhaps the most actively Christian team in the NFL at present. The team organises two Bible studies per week plus a Saturday night “pray and talk” time; star quarterback Carson Wentz is outspoken about his faith; backup quarterback Nick Foles, who won Most Valuable Player in the Superbowl, is taking seminary classes to become a pastor; and wide receiver Marcus Johnson was baptised by his teammates in a hotel swimming pool. Tight end Zach Ertz, who scored the final touchdown in the Superbowl, said: “Making disciples of Christ is the number one priority in in our lives. Football is a platform that we have to spread the word.”

And finally, police in Montreal attempted to write a ticket for an illegally parked snow-covered car, only to discover that the entire ‘car’ – shaped like a DeLorean DMC-12 – was made of snow. A 33 year old machinist and artist had created it as a prank for snow removal crews, but the police found it first. The artist admitted what he had done and the police wrote him a ticket that said, “You made our night!”

Not The BBC News: 29 December 2017

The Canadian government has stepped up its discrimination against individuals and organisations who are pro-life or opposed to LGBT rights. The country’s Office of Religious Freedom was shut down in March 2016, since when the government has forced the province of Prince Edward island to start offering abortions by various threats including withholding general health funding; forced public employees to take a pro-LGBT ‘gender equality’ test with unspecified consequences if they fail; donated at least $241 million to support abortion in developing countries, with the government’s development minister describing abortion as “a tool for ending poverty”; created an official Day of Pink, the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, and Pride Month; walked out of a committee meeting of the Status of Women committee because a pro-life woman was nominated as chairperson; attempted to remove the only Criminal Code provision protecting freedom of worship; spent $16 million on an LGBT propaganda campaign; and for good measure failed to mention Jews on the plaque at its recent National Holocaust Memorial, instead promoting opposition to “hate, intolerance and discrimination”. Its latest move is to restrict grants to employers to hire students for summer jobs to only those employers who will sign an attestation that they support abortion and transgenderism.

The European Parliament too has demonstrated its opposition to pro-life principles in a rebuke to Poland for recent pro-life laws. The laws ban abortion in cases where unborn children have severe congenital disabilities; prohibit the over-the-counter sale of the morning-after pill without a prescription; and cut funding for liberal “women’s rights” organizations, giving the money instead to Catholic organizations more in line with Polish traditional and family values. The European Parliament’s response was to initiate the formal process for rebuking a member state found to be in “serious breach” of their obligations under the Treaty of the EU, on the grounds of failing to respect human rights, democratic values, and the independence of the judiciary. This is only the second time this process has ever been initiated; the first was against Hungary earlier this year for its refusal to comply with EU quotas for accepting refugees from the Middle East.

Bermuda has become the first territory in the world to restore the traditional definition of marriage by legislating to ban same-sex weddings only six months after they were introduced. Voters in the British Overseas Territory had rejected same-sex marriage by a landslide in a referendum in 2016; however, earlier this year the island’s Supreme Court disregarded the public vote to rule that same-sex marriage should be legal. The first of these ceremonies took place in June. A subsequent election led to a change of government, and last week the House of Assembly passed a measure restoring the traditional definition of marriage. Domestic partnerships, a form of civil partnership, will now be available to same-sex couples instead of marriage.

In Peru, the government has backed down on attempts to introduce “gender identity” into the school curriculum after 1.5 million people marched to protest against the decision under the banner “Con mis hijos no te metas” – ‘Don’t mess with my kids’. The curriculum was described as defending the equal rights of men and women and also described the importance of defending “reproductive rights” – seen by many as a shorthand for abortion.

In the UK, the number of abortions because the unborn baby has a cleft lip or palate is rising. 38 abortions for this reason were recorded between 2002 and 2012; there were 39 more between 2013 and 2016.

In the USA, two armed attacks against Christians ended rather differently. In one case in Princess Anne, Maryland, a masked man broke into a church Bible study and demanded the group hand over mobile phones and money. The pastor walked up to him and ordered him to “leave in Jesus’ name”. The robber backed off a little but then drew his weapon and touched the pastor’s neck with it, while saying that he didn’t want to do this. “Well, then, don’t do it”, replied the pastor. The man escaped with a few cellphones. In the other case Jared Plesec, a 21 year old Salvation Army worker in Cleveland, Ohio was preaching the gospel to a man (wearing full uniform and holding a Bible) when the man shot him in the head and then went on a carjacking spree before being arrested. Hundreds of people, many young, flocked to offer tributes; one said Jared “would go into any neighbourhood. He wasn't afraid of anything”; another that Jared would have forgiven his killer; and a third saying that in conversations with Jared about being careful on the streets, Jared had replied, 'I'm not afraid. I know where I'm going … to die is gain’.

In Ferndale, Michigan, Satanists along with anti-Christian radicals disrupted a group of Christians singing Christmas carols (with a permit) in front of a nativity display at a city hall in Michigan. One of the most obscene disrupters was a 19-year-old man who has run for a seat on a Board of Education and has worked on the campaign for a democrat politician. Another carried a sign inviting people to shout out worship to Satan and receive a free doughnut in return.

A Polish doctor in Norway who claimed a freedom of conscience exemption from inserting contraceptive/abortifacent IUD devices and was subsequently sacked has won her appeal against her dismissal. Her employer hired her with full knowledge of her objections in 2013, but in 2015 the Norwegian government eliminated conscience protections for family doctors. The original tribunal ruled against her but the appeal court reversed the decision. In a statement, she quoted a famous Polish king who said, “Veni, vidi, Deus vicit”.

In southern Egypt, authorities have allowed 21 churches to restore, expand and rebuild, after a wait of about two decades, and some are attributing this gesture to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's scheduled visit to the country later this month. However, persecution of Christians by ISIS and associated groups in the country continues; a Coptic priest was killed with a meat cleaver in October, and regular attacks against worshippers have continued literally to this very day, with 9 Christians being killed by a gunman in a church and shop in the Helwan district of Cairo earlier today.

A Canadian missionary has been deported from Kazakhstan for holding baptisms in hot springs near the commercial capital, Almaty. Kazakhstan’s response to militant Islam has been to set up a government ministry to ensure secularity of the state while protecting the interests of Kazakhstan's religions and individual religious freedoms. However, the resulting regulations are stringent, including a ban on ‘missionary activity' without personal registration as a missionary.

In entertainment news, singer Billy Joel, who rarely makes political statements at concerts, chose to wear a yellow Star of David at a concert in Madison Square Garden in protest against the increasing prominence of neo-Nazi groups in the USA. His daughter, who was present, tweeted her pride in her father’s actions.

In technology news, a father from San Francisco has created an app that will freeze your kid’s phones until they answer your texts. Nick Herbert created the app ReplyASAP after getting fed up with his son Ben ignoring his texts. The app takes over the phone's screen and sounds an alarm (overriding any settings to silence), essentially forcing teens to respond to their worrisome parents if they want to regain access to their phone. The app also notifies parents when their adolescent has seen their message. His son is “surprisingly accepting… It gives him the freedom to keep his phone on silent, but with the knowledge that I can get a message to him if necessary.”

And finally, two separate studies found people are more likely to empathise with dogs than humans. In one of the studies, conducted by two Northeastern University lecturers in Boston, 240 participants were given one of four fake newspaper articles. Each article described an attack with a baseball bat and a police officer subsequently finding a victim severely battered and bruised. In four variations of the stories, the victim was either a one-year-old infant, an adult, a puppy, or a six-year-old adult dog. After being asked to describe their emotions, participants expressed more empathy after reading a story about a child, puppy, or dog, but less empathy towards the adult human. Overall, only a human infant was more sympathetic than an adult dog. Similarly, a a medical research charity, conducted an experiment in 2015 where they printed two adverts asking the same question: “Would you give £5 to save Harrison from a slow, painful death?” When the ad showed Harrison pictured as a dog, compared to showing Harrison pictured as a boy, the company received more donations.

Not The BBC News: 16 May 2017

There have been new developments in the legal case against Ashers, the Northern Irish bakery that was convicted under equalities law for refusing to bake a cake saying ‘Support Gay Marriage’. Firstly, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear their appeal; equalities cases do not usually progress further than the Court of Appeal but this case has been considered an exception. Secondly, Ashers have once again refused an order to bake a cake; this time the requested message was “Gay Marriage Rocks”. And thirdly, in a parallel case in the USA, a Christian printer in Kentucky has been found not guilty of discrimination for refusing to print leaflets for a lesbian event because the judge found no evidence that he had discriminated against customers because of their sexual orientation, but rather against the message he was being asked to print.

Russia and China have continued to crack down in Christianity. Russia’s Supreme Court is considering whether to declare the Jehovah’s Witnesses an “extremist” organisation; Jehovah’s Witnesses may be outside the mainstream of Christian belief, but the allegations against them of destroying families, fostering hatred and threatening lives appear to be malicious and false. And Chinese police continue to raid house churches and arrest the members on charges of “worshipping in churches that are not legally registered”; two churches in Shenzhen, Guangdong in the south of China were targeted recently.

There have been several more attempts to restrict Christians’ rights to free speech. Gwinnett College in Georgia banned a Christian preacher because even though he was in a ‘free speech zone’, his presentation of the Gospel amounted to ‘fighting words’ because it had a ‘tendency to incite hostility’. Vimeo, the video sharing website, has banned all videos in which people testify that they believe in healing from homosexuality through prayer, even if it happened to them. A Christian nurse from Dartford in the UK has been sacked for sharing her faith with patients; some patients apparently felt Sarah Kuteh talked too much about religion and prayer, but she has gone to a tribunal to argue that her sacking was disproportionate. And in a  related case, a social worker in Kent who advised a couple against having their baby baptised because it might hinder her chances of being adopted has been criticised by a family judge, who placed the baby in the care of a relative.

However, there have been two cases where free speech rights were upheld; in Florida, a student who was suspended for challenging a Muslim lecturer’s claim that Jesus Christ was not crucified has been reinstated; and in the UK an African who was expelled from his social work course at Sheffield University, after being deemed “unfit to practice” because he made a posting criticising homosexuality on his private Facebook page,  has successfully sued the university in the High Court after having his suit rejected in a lower court.

There have also been various legal moves for and against abortion rights. Most notable are the state of Alabama, whose Senate passed a bill that would give unborn babies a right to life if the responsibility for regulating abortions is ever passed to US states; and the election manifesto for the UK Labour party, which promises to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK where it is currently against the law.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry wrote a letter to the British government asking them to apologise for their role in the Balfour Declaration which created the state of Israel. The response from the UK Foreign Office was, “The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which HMG does not intend to apologise … We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel.”

Archaeologists in Israel’s Timna Valley, in an area filled with old copper mines, made a discovery that helps validate parts of the Bible – donkey dung. The dung was carbon-dated to the 10^th century BC, around that time when Israel’s wealth was at its height under King Solomon. Seeds and pollen within the dung showed that the animals’ feed was imported from more than 100 miles away, near the Mediterranean coast, implying a strong economy and safe trade routes.

The decline of the Church of England has apparently stopped; the number of people who describe themselves as Anglican have risen slightly from 16.3% in 2009 to 17.1% in 2015. Theology professor Stephen Bullivant said, “When Richard Dawkins’ book ‘The God Delusion’ was published, a lot of people who didn’t really believe in God stopped ticking ‘Anglican’ on the social surveys and started ticking ‘atheist’ instead.” He suggested that numbers have stopped falling because the church is now left with “a groundswell of genuine believers.”

In technology news, a Swedish company has started implanting microchips in all its employees. The implant acts as a key to open locked doors, a code to operate the printers, or even a credit card to buy foods and smoothies from the snack bar.

Also in technology, Microsoft have revealed that they built a prototype watch which calmed a woman’s tremors from Parkinson’s disease. It vibrates in a way designed to disrupt feedback between brain and hand, this reducing tremors in the hands. The wearer of the prototype, a 32 year old graphic designer, says she has regained her ability to write legibly and to draw straight lines.

And finally, a two year old girl from Essex who has Down’s syndrome has been chosen as one of the faces of the latest advertising campaign by the Matalan clothing chain. A spokesman for Matalan said, "It was a joy to work with Lily. She was a wonderful model and we're thrilled to hear that Lily and her parents have enjoyed seeing her photos in our stores."